NYPD commissioner wants 450 more cops to fight ISIS in the city

New York City police chief Bill Bratton has requested authorization to hire 450 more police officers in order to combat terrorism from the Islamic State.

Bratton, the NYPD chief for the past 16 months, was speaking on a radio interview with host John Catsimatidis on AM 970. He said the new officers were needed to combat the evolving threat from terrorist groups like ISIS who are using social media for new recruits.

We need to be very concerned about terrorism … The significantly increased threat from ISIS using social media to recruit people not only to go to Syria to fight, but encouraging people … to attack police, to attack government officials, to basically brainwash them under their screwed-up ideology. That threat has expanded significantly in the now 16 months I’ve been police commissioner.

Bratton supplied no evidence for the increased threat from ISIS. A controversial surveillance unit of NYPD constituted after 9/11 to keep watch on Muslim neighborhoods was closed last year after he took over as NYPD Chief.

Bratton had recently floated a proposal to close 1.2 million open warrants for low-level offenses by giving amnesty to help NYPD focus on major crimes.

NYPD currently has a headcount of 49,000, with 35,000 uniformed officers, and is the largest police force in the United States at roughly four times the size of the Police Department of Los Angeles , the second largest city in the country.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had recently indicated that he believed that NYPD IS adequately staffed.The New York City Council, meanwhile, wants an increase of 1,000 to the city's 35,000 police officers. The Mayor and the City Council must agree on a final NYPD budget for 2016 by the end of June.